"In the apsis itself, upon a dark-blue ground with golden-edged clouds, is seen the colossal figure of Christ: the right hand raised either in benediction or in teaching, the left holding a written scroll; above is the hand which we have already noticed as the emblem of the First Person of the Trinity. Below, on each side, the apostles Peter and Paul are leading SS. Cosmo and Damiano, each with crowns in their hands, towards the Saviour, followed by St Theodore on the right, and by Pope Felix IV., the founder of the church, on the left. . . . Two palm-trees, sparkling with gold, above one of which appears the emblem of eternity-the phoenix-with starshaped nimbus, close the composition on each side. Further below, indicated by water-plants, sparkling also with gold, is the river Jordan. The figure of Christ may be regarded as one of the most marvellous specimens of the art of the middle ages. Countenance, attitude, and drapery, combine to give him an expression of quiet majesty, which, for many centuries after, is not found again in equal beauty and freedom. The drapery especially is disposed in noble folds, and only in its somewhat too ornate details, is a further departure from the antique observable. . . . . The apostles Peter and Paul wear the usual ideal costume: SS. Cosmo and Damiano are attired in the late Roman dress: violet mantles in

gold stuff, with red embroideries of Oriental barbaric effect."*

In justice, however, we will add these succeeding words :-"In spite of the high excellence of this work, it is precisely here that we can clearly discern in what respects the degeneracy and impoverishment of art first showed itself." It showed itself just as degeneracy and impoverishment" manifest themselves in national civilisation, want of vigour in action and thought, want of elevation in the character and type of the people, and want of truth to the simplicity of nature. On various visits to Italy we have spent many hours, and indeed days, in the examination of these early works, with, we must confess, little accruing pleasure, and with but doubtful advantage. Our love of art in its periods of perfection, whether classic or Christian, is too intense to permit us any actual enjoyment in antiquity without

excellence, and art without beauty. Nevertheless we have gone studiously through all these works, in order that we might know what was the origin of the arts of the revival, what were the difficulties with which they contended, and by what means and agencies they rose from the grave of nations into the victorious life of a new civilisation. Our reward has been that, from the depths in which we found this early art cast down, we have learned so much the more to reverence and love the essential beauty, truth, and goodness of that Italian art which rose into life out of ruin.

Rome," the city of the soul," the grave of so much greatness, which still offers to the mind riches inexhaustible, and fires the imagination with an ardour not to be extinguished-that city which, having at first "conquered the world by the power of her arms, for a second time subdued it by the spell of her imagination"-the wreck of the world's past hopes, and the despair of all present aspiration-containing within her walls the treasures of well-nigh three thousand years -saw the first rise of Christian art in the catacombs and the Basilicas-and now endures art's latest degeneracy in the statue of the Immaculate Conception. In that city the student can walk from the earliest churches, or from the Christian Museums of the Vatican or of the Lateran- from art of the fifth and sixth centuries to Raphael's fresco of Theology in the Stanzas of the Vatican; and in that short walk he will have traversed just one thousand years. All that we have before asserted, wellnigh all indeed that can be told of the progression of Christian art, receives in this city either proof or illustration. Let the traveller in Rome take only one morning's drive, and we would point out to him more in three hours than, by mere home study, he might learn in three years. Let him take his carriage in the Piazza di Spagna, and passing the Palazzo Barberina, traversing the Quirinale and the Viminale, reach, on the summit of the Esquiline, the grand basilica of Santa Maria Mag

giore. In the stately aisle of this queenly church he will see a series of small mosaic pictures, taken from the Old Testament, and dating back to the first half of the fifth century. To us the great interest of these works has always been the evidence they furnish of the identity in style between the latest Roman and the earliest Christian art. Compare these rude, overcrowded mosaics, in costume, type of figure, and art-treatment, with the bas-reliefs on the Colonna Antonina, with a late and remarkably debased bas-relief of Æneas and Dido in the Vatican, and it will be seen, as already pointed out, that Christian art began where Pagan ended that the fall of one and the origin of the other were alike part of that second barbarism which swept over Roman civilisation.

From the Roman Christian mosaics of the fifth century to the Byzantine of the thirteenth, an interval of seven centuries, the traveller has only to pass from the nave of Santa Maria Maggiore to the tribune. In this domed apsis he finds one of the richest and most ornate examples of Byzantine art; the Saviour, with glory round the brow, holding in one hand an open book, places the crown upon the head of the Madonna, henceforth Queen of Heaven, who, with one hand raised in wonder and the other laid upon the breast, gently bends for ward in humble acquiescence. Beneath the throne are a company of adoring angels floating on the wing, and near at hand are kneeling bishops and standing saints, all gazing upward in wondering adoration. All nature, likewise rejoicing, breaks forth into exuberant growth: arabesques, rich in flowers and foliage, fill the heavens; and among the branches perch or sport gentle doves or the gorgeous bird of paradise. Beneath, flowing across the foreground, is a river - stream, on the margin whereof walks the stag, in whose waters sport fish and birds, or float boats and cherub children, carried by the wind or borne on wings. All this, it must be admitted, from the beauty and the poetry of the idea, reads better in description than it looks in reality. The work, as we VOL. LXXXIII.-NO. DXI.

have before stated, is an example of the Byzantine school, the distinction between which and the Roman Christian is, however, little more than technical, each being to the ordinary observer about equally removed from the truth of nature or the beauteous spirituality of succeeding Christian art. It may, however, be well for a moment to dwell on the distinction between these two schools of the Empire of the West on the one hand, and the Empire of the East on the other.

Roman art, we will frankly say, is our detestation. We speak not, of course, of Grecian, which, on the contrary, is equally our worship, nor of that Greco-Romano which was, in fact, Greek by parentage, and Roman only by the rites of naturalisation. We must confess, however, that we have great abhorrence, for the most part, of all statues of Roman emperors, however gigantic-of all gladiators in mosaic found in the Baths of Caracalla of all bas-reliefs on triumphal arches-and of those endless processions of Roman soldiers, with captives and spoils, winding their way to the summit of a column. At best, such works have a low worldly naturalism, the very opposite of that pure art-treatment, at once ideal and natural, which gives to Grecian_art its unparalleled excellence. It must, however, be admitted, that though Roman works have little of aesthetic beauty, they possess, as we have said, a certain rude naturalism, and, above all, somewhat of that Roman energy which conquered the world. But when that energy had become enervated, and nature was either forgotten or corrupted, nothing remained to Roman art but its essential coarseness. At this unhappy moment Christianity sought for art-expression, and hence the origin of the Roman Christian school. Its characteristics will now be understood: a coarse naturalism, in which nature was corrupted-a rude energy, degenerating into weakness. Yet, strange to say, such works obtain admirers. The following is a description of the mosaics of the fifth century covering the arch of triumph in the church of St Paul, without the walls of Rome :

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"Within a cruciform nimbus fifteen feet in diameter, and surrounded with rays, shines forth in the centre the colossal figure of the Saviour - the right hand raised in benediction, the left holding the sceptre: a delicately folded mantle

of thin material covers the shoulders; the

form is stern, but grand in conception; the eyebrows in finely-arched half circles above the widely opened eyes; the nose in a straight Grecian line; the mouth, which is left clear of all beard, closed with an expression of mild serenity, and

hair and beard divided in the centre. Above, in the clouds, on a smaller scale, are seen the four-winged animals bearing the books of the Gospels; lower down two angels (perhaps one of the earliest hest specimens of angel - representation) are lowering their wands before the Redeemer, on each side of whom the fourand-twenty elders are humbly casting their crowns those on the right bare headed, the others covered: the one signifying the prophets of the Old Testament, who only saw the truth through a veil; the other, the apostles of the New Testament, who beheld it face to face. Finally, below these, where only a narrow space remains next the arch, appear on the left, St Paul with the sword, and on the right, St Peter with the keys; both, in the style of the divided hair, somewhat approaching the type of Christ; both in active gesture, as if engaged in the proclamation of the Gospel. Like the sound of a hymn of praise, the adorations of the old and new time, of the Evangelists and of the great teachers of the faith, here unite; and whoever at the same time considers that the whole length of the walls of the centre aisle was formerly occupied with the history of Christ and the Church-consisting of a series of biblical scenes, with saints, martyrs, and portraits of the Popes, all intended to prepare the eye for the great subjects upon the arch of triumph-will find it difficult to imagine how the mosaics of the Tribune itself could surpass in beauty those of the aisles."*

In the rebuilding of St Paul's this mosaic has been now restored; and Mr Anderson, our English photographer, has, we are glad to say, included the work in his admirably executed series of Roman photographs. Photography, among the many changes it must produce in art, may, we trust, lead to greater precision and accuracy in art-criticism.

Were we, for example, in reading the above glowing description, limited to the dim recollections of memory, or even to the vagueness of written notes, we might hesitate before we ventured to pronounce these eulogistic words a preposterous exaggeration. By this photograph, however, we bring the mosaic itself for quiet examination into our own room, are not only able to revive our own impressions, but to show how utterly valueless is the entire system of criticism, which dares to characterise such wretched imbecility by terms of praise suited only to the master-works in art.. Why, this head of Christ, "grand in conception," ""the eyebrows finely "the nose in a straight arched," Grecian line," "the mouth with an expression of mild serenity," terms only to be justified in the designation of a type by Leonardo or Raphaelthis head of Christ, so extolled, is, in truth, piteous to look on. Truly He is here the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; but it is sorrow and grief in which there is no ministry of angels, no access to the Godhead. The divine aspect is lost the human even degraded. Lines of corroding care, the cast of a hopeless melancholy, have taken possession of the features, as if the temptation and the fasting of the forty days had been carried over as many years, and the Evil One had at last made sure his empire. It is needless that we should further stigmatise this work. There is not a single figure which does not show the prostration and paralysis of art. But let it not for one moment be supposed that we should censure any effort to preserve or restore this great remnant and record of a dark and barbarous age. Nevertheless, the value of such a record, let us once again repeat, is merely as a historic link in the great chain of progressive development. Its very import is to show us how low it was possible for art to sink, to teach us with what difficulty the beauty, the truth, and the elevation of the Christian religion obtained a worthy expression, and thus the more to make us love and honour those great names and glorious works which once again in the

arts restored dignity to human nature, and gave even to revelation an accession of poetry and of lustre.

During this tedious disquisition on Roman-Christian art, the traveller is supposed to have been patiently standing in the nave of Sta Maria Maggiore, where fortunately, how ever, he cannot well stand too long, of so much beauty are the proportions of the interior, so many objects in the history of art, or for splendour of decoration, merit his examination. On leaving Sta Maria Maggiore it is scarcely needful that he should enter his carriage, so near at hand is the small church of S. Prassede, built and decorated with mosaics in the ninth century. Should the traveller now desire a digression from his more severe art-studies, and a taste of those religious sensations which, in Italy, the Church provides for the enjoyment of the believer, the custode will unlock a small and dark chapel, where, with the aid of a lighted taper, may be seen a portion of a column of oriental jasper, brought from Jerusalem by Cardinal Colonna in 1223, and said by the Church-tradition to be the column to which the Saviour was fastened at the flagellation!" That the imagination may be still further stimulated by an accumulation of the religious horrors in which the morbid minds of a degraded people take a diseased delight, the Church has placed in the sacristy the Flagellation at this column, in a somewhat coarse picture by Giulio Romano. We fear, however, that this digression may scarcely the better prepare our traveller for the dry study of the severe mosaics in the Tribune. But he can, even in such works as these, find some mental excitement. If in these centuries of art-debility, power of expression and execution were wanting, at least we find the influx of new motives, the struggling of new ideas, the wondrous thoughts of the new revelation, seeking for outward and visible manifestation. We find in these works taken from the Book of Revelation, the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, with four angels standing by, inviting the faithful to enter. The saints advancing, as best they can, hold forth their palmbranches, or present their crowns to

Christ, standing in the midst. Upon the arch of triumph the Lamb is placed upon a jewelled altar, with the cross above and the seven candlesticks around; four angels stand by; the four symbols of the Evangelists -the lion, the angel, the eagle, and the bull-each holding the book of the Gospels in hand-look on in solemn mystery; while the four-andtwenty elders, with advancing step and upraised arm, present their crowned wreaths to the Lamb, worthy to receive glory, and honour, and power." But let it not for a moment be supposed that the poetry of this eastern imagery involves, in the remotest degree, a corresponding perfection in art. Yet these degraded works may well be studied, and in some sort admired, for their childlike simplicity, for their unconscious grotesqueness, and for the direct and literal manner in which they seek to express high thoughts beyond their power of utterance.

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We now enter, though still within the gates and walls, upon the outskirts of modern Rome, upon those districts given up to gardens and malaria, in which, at intervals, stands a deserted villa, a forlorn church, a broken aqueduct, or the ruined Baths of Titus or Caracalla. A drive of a few minutes along a dreary and monotonously-straight road brings us to the Piazza and Church of S. John Lateran, just within the city gate which leads to Naples. We enter, and are indeed overpowered by the richness of one of the most gorgeous of church interiors to be found even in Rome. Walking up the lavishly decorated nave, we find in the Tribune a grand Byzantine_mosaic of the thirteenth century. It in no material degree differs in subject or character from those already visited; but these works tell so well when thrown into words, that we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting the following ardent description from Lord Lindsay's Christian Art. After having spoken of the mosaics in the Tribune of S. Maria Maggiore as "singularly august and grand," he writes with eloquent enthusiasm as follows:

'But the mosaic of S. Giovanni is still

more so, and in conception is at once original and sublime. Its subject is the

union of heaven and earth by baptism. The head of Christ, majestic and benig nant, looks down from heaven, indicated by a grand semicircular orb of intense blue-the little clouds scattered over its surface, assuming every colour of the rainbow (as in the setting sun), while they float across his glory. Above the

Saviour the Father is represented, not as usually by a hand from heaven, but by a face veiled with wings, on either side of which a company of angels are symmetrically ranged. Below these two persons of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost, descending like a dove, sheds the trinal influence, in the similitude of a stream of water, upon the cross, elevated on the summit of the mystic Calvary, the Mount of Paradise, and decorated with ten precious gems, artificially jointed into each other, in the centre of which is inserted a medallion, representing the baptism of our Saviour. The spiritual waters, falling from the angels of the cross, are ultimately collected at its base, forming a deep well of life,' at which stags are drinking, symbolical of the faithful. From this well four streams descend the moun

tain the four rivers of Paradise or of the Gospels-to water the earth. They sink into it and are lost, but reappear in the foreground, poured out of the urns of river-gods, one of which is designated by the inscription 'Jordanes'-the united streams forming the river of the waters of life.' The river forms several cataracts, and is in one place confined by a dam; boats filled with passengers are seen floating down the stream; souls, in the shape of children, are bathing in it, or sporting with swans and other waterfowl; others, like little winged Cupids, amuse themselves on shore, among peacocks, cocks, the hen and chickens, and other Christian symbols; while towering over them, like trees of righteousness planted by the waters,' stand a company of saints and apostles, headed by the Virgin and S. John the Baptist; and lastly, in the centre, though very small, and immediately at the foot of the cross, and between the four mystic streams, appears the gate of Paradise, a vast fortress, flanked with towers, and guarded by the cherub standing before it with his

drawn sword; the tree of life rising above it, and the Phoenix, apparently the emblem of the resurrection, reposing on the summit."

For the sake of the supposed traveller in Rome, and in mercy to the reader of these pages, it were well to bring our itinerary in search of mosaics to a speedy termination. The temptation to extend it still further is, however, great. From S. John Lateran it were easy to drive to the Basilica of S. Lorenzo, a mile beyond the walls, on the road to Tivoli, or to strike off to the newly rebuilt Basilica of St Paul without the walls, and examine the restored mosaic already described. Then again, entering Rome by the tomb of Caius Cestus and the Protestant Burialground, passing between the church of S. Balbina and the Baths of Caracalla, we again come upon other important mosaics in the churches of S. Stefano Rotondo and of Sta Maria in Dominica. From hence we reach once more the piazza of S. John Lateran, and return homewards by the Church of S. Clemente, the Coliseum, and the Forum. Few churches can compare with S. Clemente in interest to the artist or to the Christian antiquary. front is the atrium, or outer and open court, surrounded by columned arcades appropriated in the early church to the catachumens. The interior of the church itself is, in its arrangement, equally a departure from modern usage. In front of the altar, enclosed by four-sided marble screens, decorated by geometric mosaic patterns, is the Presbytery; on each side of which are the ambones, or marble pulpits from which the epistle and the gospel were read. Behind, at the apsis or tribune, is the episcopal seat raised on a platform, and divided from the rest of the church by two gates. Above, in the semi-arched vault over the altar, is a remarkably ornate Byzantine mosaic of the eleventh century, specially rich in elaborate arabesques, and, like in symbols, and grotesque when inother works already described, mystic tending to be most solemn. Lastly, in this small church, so abounding in

In